Actually Not a Slash Fic
by Trefoil-underscore
Summary: Lord Heron is a little concerned that his son is spending too much time with Steve. Meanwhile, Herobrine is a little concerned that his father doesn't seem to understand the concept of friendship. Rated T for satiric subject matter. Idiot crack written as stress relief. Contains ANTI-pairings, which will be enforced. Angrily. With swords.
1. Oh Noes, I iz Surrounded by Idiocy!

Lord Heron forced the bolt on the door and walked into his son's room. The bed was a messy heap of blankets and pillows. A brown head was visible at the end, under a red blanket. Lord Heron gave it a sharp _wake up_ pat and waited for results. "Hey. Dad?" said Steve sleepily, squinting up at him. Lord Heron, only now realizing that this was entirely the wrong person, jumped. "You. What are you doing here?" "Sleeping." "Hey," said Herobrine, appearing from the other end of the pillow nest. "What's up?" Lord Heron pointed questioningly at Steve, who had gone back to sleep. "What… what is he doing here?" Herobrine yawned and made himself into a blanket burrito. "Well I'm apparently the only person in this family that cares about his mental health. So he comes up here when he has nightmares. Usually he just sleeps on the floor, but I was awake and I told him to join me. Don't know why he sleeps on the floor. We could fit at least five more people in here and still have room to roll over." "Nightmares." said Lord Heron. "Uh, yeah. Are you deaf as well as uninterested? He screams sometimes." "Oh, that's Steve? I thought it was zombies." Steve sounded nothing like a zombie. "About that. We need more lights in this house." "Oh shut up about that. It's fine." "It really messes with him, y'know. He doesn't feel safe." "Who?" "This idiot." Herobrine ruffled Steve's hair with his toes. Steve didn't wake up. "He doesn't whine about it, but I think he has some serious anxiety issues." "Well, great. That's all we need." "What do you want? You never come in here." "Your horse is undead. Regrettable incident in the stables." "What! Seriously?" "We'll discuss possible replacements later, but I thought I should warn you not to go in there." his message given, Lord Heron walked to the door. He shot a disapproving look at Steve before he slammed it, rather loudly. Steve didn't wake up. Herobrine said some choice words about zombies running loose over the premises and not enough torches burning and his poor stupid horse. Steve didn't wake up. Herobrine kicked him. He then resorted to rolling him out of bed, wrapping him in blankets, and rolling him around the floor like a barrel until he showed signs of life. "So guess what, I now have a zombie horse." "Hnng?" said Steve. "Why are you so impossible to wake up?...Steve! Don't you dare go back to sleep!"

Later, Herobrine would remember that night as the beginning of the Saga of Dad Constantly Giving Us Weird Looks.

Steve didn't remember anything. He had been asleep.

The Saga continued for nearly a month, and it began to make Herobrine nervous. His father would appear out of nowhere, give them a disapproving look, and then disappear before he could say anything. Once he popped out of nowhere to stare judgmentally at them while they were arguing about the translation of a historical document they'd discovered in the library. Herobrine had a hard time seeing how that could even be misinterpreted, but he guessed it could be, with a steadfast determination to view everything as abnormal and a complete lack of context, both of which his father apparently had. Steve, despite his sharp eyes, generally missed these brief visitations. "What?" "Dammit he's gone. It was dad again." "Where?" "Just there, looking at you. I don't like how he looks at you." Steve looked quizzically at him. "Never mind. Just don't ask." "OK." Steve had a tendency to accept whatever he said. Sometimes he found it annoying, but at times like this it was convenient.

One morning Herobrine was sitting at the open window munching on a piece of toast when Steve came in to say good morning before leaving for work. A few seconds later Lord Heron barged in without knocking. Herobrine choked on his toast. "Ah. I thought you would both be here." "Lucky guess, he just came in," said Herobrine, trying to catch his father's eye so he could give him a meaningful look. Steve was distracted by a butterfly which had fluttered through the open window and was bumbling around the room. Lord Heron waved his hand dismissively. "I have an errand for you. Both of you." Herobrine's _the idiot is scheming something idiotic and I object to the idiocy_ sense tingled. He cringed slightly. "What." Steve trapped the butterfly under a glass dome that usually stood over some of Herobrine's scientific equipment, carried it to the window and released it. Herobrine pressed himself against the opposite windowsill. Steve, completely missing the hint, leaned companionably against him to watch the butterfly fly away. Herobrine refused to look at his father. "Steve get off," he whispered. "Hmm?" "Get. off." "I can't hear you?" "You're crushing my ribs!" "Oh. Sorry." Herobrine looked at his father, who was smiling at him. The kind of smile that causes heart palpitations. No, not happy palpitations. Panic palpitations. "So what do you want?" he said. Lord Heron slid his signet ring off his finger and handed it to him. "I want you to take this into town and have the stone reset. It's loose, and it makes this annoying clicky noise when I move my hand. I don't want to lose it." Herobrine poked the stone. "It's fine." "It is not. It's very annoying." "It is perfectly fine." "You don't have to wear it. It clicks and it's annoying." Herobrine put it on his hand and shook it vigorously. "Absolutely no clicking." Lord Heron glared at him. "Will you go or not?" "Alright, I'll go." "Good. Here's some spending money for you. Take Steve." "Steve has a job, remember?" "I talked to Hagen and informed him that this is non-negotiable. I want Steve to make sure they do a decent job." "What, I can't?" "You aren't a blacksmith." "Blacksmiths aren't jewelers, either." "Listen, I've already had it settled. You'll leave in the morning?" Steve and Herobrine looked at each other. Steve shrugged. "Sure?" "Alright, fine." "Good."

There is something shady about this, thought Herobrine, and I resent that.

 **A/N: In case you're wondering, yes this does take place in the backstory of my universe, at the time when Steve and Herobrine were bros, before they got slammed with The Plot. (And before Herobrine had most of his power.)  
Or would, if it were canon and not 100% crack.  
Then again, Convenient Alias has pointed out that practically everything I write is crack...**


	2. The Amazing Quest of Pointlessness!

They left early in the morning, Herobrine on the replacement for his zombie horse, Steve on a work horse. There were a few zombies lingering around the gate, Steve rode them down and then between the two of them they divided the zombies into nonthreateningly sized bits. Then they rode off down the road, grass waving on either side, forest standing back tall and dark to their left. Steve hummed quietly to himself. "When's the last time you've been to the city?" said Herobrine. Steve shrugged. "Can't remember. Actually, I'm not sure I've been." "You have, at least once." "Oh, that's right, I remember now. Don't think I've been since then." the entire family had taken a trip once. It had not been very dysfunctional, surprisingly. That was only a few years before mother left. She had more or less gotten used to the idea of Steve, and tended to ignore him. Lord Heron, who didn't want to restart any drama, ignored Steve as well. As a child Herobrine could never understand why they didn't appreciate him more. He was a much nicer child than Herobrine. He didn't talk back, he didn't disobey (unless Herobrine suggested it,) and he wanted to please to an almost unhealthy extent. It made no sense.

Herobrine was discovering that there was a lot about adulthood that didn't make sense.

"Well, you'll have to follow me then." "Alright." Herobrine looked at Steve and smiled. "You're very trusting, aren't you?" "Huh?" "Do you trust me completely?" Steve squinted at him. "Hmm… yes." "That's dumb." "Why?" "Say I told you to jump off a cliff." "Then you'd be insane. And I'd have to tie you up and feed you cookies until you got better." he grinned. "How do you know I'm not already insane? I think it runs in the family." "Well then, we're both insane." "Nah, I think you lucked out." "Are you kidding? We both know I'm the crazy one." "Not necessarily. Damaged and crazy are different things." they rode in silence for a while. Steve considered. Herobrine was a prankster who didn't say much about his inner life. What was he trying to say? He knew that there were long periods when Herobrine didn't want to do anything but lie in a pillow nest and look at the wall. He'd always assumed that it was because he was lazy. Which was fine. He had no obligations. Now that he thought about it, there was sometimes a worrying dullness in those frost-grey eyes.

Herobrine had half-expected Lord Heron to follow them, but he hadn't seen him since the day before. And it was pleasant, riding through the fields with Steve. Grass rippled in the breeze under a bright sun, butterflies fluttered gracefully in the calm or were tumbled sideways in the breeze. They did encounter one creeper, but Steve had brought his bow, and they rode out of range and shot it without too much excitement. "Probably should've stopped to get the arrows back," Herobrine mused as they rode away. "Sorry," said Steve absently. Herobrine waved his hand. "Don't apologize." "Sorry." "Are you… apologizing for apologizing?" "Um—" "For Notch's sake, stop apologizing!" "I'm s—augh! You almost got me." "Ya derp." "Derp." Steve flicked Herobrine's hair into his face and rode away quickly.

"So. Metals expert." "Hmm? I'm not an expert—" "What did you think about that, back there?" "I think he thought exactly what I did. That the setting is perfectly fine. But he didn't want to say anything about it." "Why would he, we're paying him." "Right." Herobrine kicked a lamppost as they passed. "This is weird." Steve shrugged and continued looking around. It didn't seem to bother him much. Herobrine noticed something, but tried not to look like he had. He was tired of having to explain everything to Steve and sounding paranoid. "Steve. Look at that guy around the corner of the fish stall." Steve looked, and the person in question quickly disappeared. Herobrine waited. Steve said nothing. Dangit, I'm seeing things. Either that or he missed—"Was that… dad? What is he doing here?" Herobrine laughed. Proof he wasn't seeing things. Of course, he couldn't make this up if he'd tried. "Who knows. Whoring maybe." Steve gave him a _you should speak respectfully of your father_ look. "Hey now." "Steve, you exist." "That is true." "It is and you know it. He's a hopeless womanizer. It's disgusting." "Hi, Herobrine!" Steve looked curiously at the attractive young lady in red stockings who was waving at them from across the street. "Who's that?" Herobrine tackled him and dragged him down a nearby alley, blushing. "Ignore that that happened. Ignore. Ignore." "…Oh." "Right," said Herobrine, walking down the alley, "We should find somewhere to stay. And also get away from here. And also hopefully lose dad." "What do you mean, lose him?" "I think he's following us." "We only just saw him." "Well, I'd expect him to have been waiting, and not to have tried to follow us the whole way. He's not dumb." there was a scream from behind him. He whipped around and found an urchin dangling in the air, one skinny arm enclosed in Steve's fist. It was kicking viciously at his ribs. Herobrine's money pouch dangled from the limp hand. "…." said Herobrine. "Reflexes," said Steve, batting away kicks aimed at his nether regions. The urchin was playing dirty. "you may want to work on them." "….Thanks." he took the money pouch back and the urchin glared at him. Herobrine glared back. "Alright, drop the thing. Let's go." Steve raised the urchin to face level, holding its legs so it couldn't kick him. "Stealing is mean," he said, placidly. The urchin stared at him. It didn't seem to have been called mean before. Larcenous, swinish, hopeless, bad—yes. But mean was something it understood. Mean was when your sister hit you on the head and wouldn't share. Also, it had had a long day and a pretty severe scare. It had sized up Steve, apparently incorrectly, as a slow-moving type who didn't notice much, and had been prepared for death, a night in jail or at least a solid beating when it realized it was wrong. Thus the vigorous kicking, which hadn't phased Steve, to its amazement and terror. The urchin went limp and began to cry. Herobrine groaned. "Put it down, Steve. Steve. Steve what are doing. Steve, don't be nice. It wants that. Steve. Dammit. Notch, why." they were standing in a shady alley and Steve was comforting a screaming urchin.

The urchin's name was Frank and Bad Things happened if he didn't bring home enough money every day. Herobrine wasn't particularly touched. Just another sob story, you got a lot in the city. Some were true. Some were entirely made up. You often didn't hear the true stories, people with pride didn't whine. Con artists did. But he allowed Steve to buy Frank a sandwich and a bowl of milk and talk to him until he had calmed down. In the end Frank scampered off grinning with a bag of apples and a loaf of bread, stopping at the corner to look adoringly back at Steve, who waved, before disappearing. "Right, so we're done with that," said Herobrine, crossing his arms. He double checked that he still had their money on his person. He did. "Well, follow me." "Poor kid," said Steve. "Reminds me of myself." "How?!"

The rest of the evening was enjoyable and not very eventful. It did involve food and did not involve low-aimed kicks, two things which made Steve happy. Herobrine spent a long time arguing with the innkeeper though. Apparently he'd stayed there before and it was unusual that there was only one room, with one bed. "Alright, fine. Wait. One question. Has my dad been here?" "…." the innkeeper gave his best impression of a cow standing in a field. "Well?" said Herobrine. "…" the innkeeper turned slightly, like a cow that thinks it hears something from the opposite direction. Herobrine took his key and made a rude gesture to his general surroundings. "I guess we know the answer to that. Come on, Steve." the bed was fairly large by Steve standards, and much too small by Herobrine standards. "I might just sleep on the floor," said Herobrine, throwing his pack down. "It's probably got fleas." "No, I think it's fine." "Well it looks suspicious. I'll sleep on the floor." "No, I'll take the floor." "No you won't." "It's fine." "Steve! Stop being so horrendously nice to everything!" "No I don't mind. I can sleep anywhere." "It's going to be dumb if we both sleep on the floor." Steve agreed. "So? Take the bed." "Nope." "Nope?" "I'm not sleeping on a bed while you're on the floor." "Steve! Take the bed!" "No." Herobrine flung himself facedown on the bed in disgust. "I hate everything." "No you don't. Look, there's room for both of us." Herobrine mumbled something. "What?" "Nothing. Fine we'll share." "Good. I'm glad you stopped being ridiculous." I'm not the one being ridiculous, thought Herobrine.

 **A/N: My other stories are better than this, I swear. Which ones? Literally any of them. But perhaps this will amuse you. I hope so.**


	3. Another Perspective

Lord Heron had in fact been following them, and was now leaning shadily against a lamppost, obviously planning something. He had reconciled to the idea that both of his offspring were gay. But with each other? He was still struggling with the idea that they were siblings, but then again, they were only half siblings, and he had really tried to downplay the whole sibling thing during their childhoods, for… family drama reasons. He hadn't thought it would come back to bite him in quite this way.

He'd had suspicions about them for a while. At one point he thought it may have been only a brief thing, and had been prepared to look the other way, but recently it seemed that they regularly slept together, and as the parent of both of them he felt he ought to investigate. He didn't like the task. For one thing, Herobrine was abrasively defensive about the whole subject, and they couldn't even have a conversation about it. He just flatly denied everything. His attitude made sense, but it was also inconvenient. And he'd become downright sneaky in the last month. Lord Heron had decided that they needed to meet on neutral ground. Thus the business of the ring setting, which was total BS on his part, but effective.

He supposed it made sense, when he thought about it. He was a little surprised at Herobrine's tastes, that was all. He wasn't surprised about Steve at all, he already knew Steve would do anything for him. Even as a child he'd been Herobrine's number one fan. He was a quiet, easily startled child, who tended to run out of the room and hide when he fought with Maris. That had happened regularly for a while, before they split up. One day they had all been together and shouting started for some reason, he couldn't remember exactly, but Herobrine was there being a mini smartass, and he shouted at him. Steve then appeared out of nowhere, picked up his brother, and backed out of the room, glaring protectively at Lord Heron over his head. That was the only time he'd known mini Steve to come out of hiding during a fight. He hadn't really changed, though he had developed the strength of an ox somewhere along the way. Maybe passing him off on the blacksmith hadn't been such a bad idea, though he'd had doubts. That family was too friendly. He didn't like people being friendly together behind his back.

He had no doubts that he was correct about this, despite Herobrine's repeated denials. The brothers were far too friendly. It was bizarre. Lord Heron had never been that close with anyone, and he considered it to be an indication that something strange was going on. He'd have been certain even without all the proof. They were constantly together… and there was that time he had found them actually—he grimaced and shook himself. He was trying not to remember the painful awkwardness of that situation. Well, he might as well get it over with. He hoped that Herobrine would be less likely to deny everything in this situation. He walked to the inn, where the innkeeper was berating his daughter for scribbling unicorns on the walls with charcoal from the fire. He looked up for a moment and Lord Heron nodded at him. He nodded back. This involved dropping his guard for a moment, and his daughter quickly drew hearts all over his forearm. "Forsythia!?" Lord Heron smirked as he climbed the stairs. Now, if Forsythia were his burden, he wouldn't tolerate that. Idiot children. What did they want, anyway? Who could understand a child? He took out his key, unlocked the door and walked into Herobrine and Steve's room.

Herobrine, unlike Steve, was a light sleeper and woke up to the soft click of a door opening. He tensed and grabbed for his sword. "It's me." he sighed. "Dad? What are you doing here?" oh God that smile. It's so awkward it's painful. He tried to scoot away from Steve and realized that Steve had at some point decided that he was cold and that the logical way to deal with this was to wrap himself around Herobrine like a bulky Steve-shaped comforter. He struggled furiously to extricate himself, punching Steve in the process. Steve sighed, curled up in Herobrine's vacated warm spot and did not wake up. "It's alright, I know," said Lord Heron, closing the door quietly and leaning against it. "Know what?" said Herobrine, bristling. Lord Heron rolled his eyes. "I hoped we could be done with this." "So did I." Lord Heron gestured at the oblivious Steve. "Listen, I'm not… I mean, you're brothers." "We are." "So… alright, weirder things have happened in our bloodline. I accept this. You don't have to distrust me, I'll let you be." "I wish you would." "But I need you to stop being so confrontational and—" "Can you just speak clearly? What is going on here?" he didn't want to outright deny it prematurely. He felt like it would make him look overly defensive and make his father even more suspicious. "I know about you and Steve." Herobrine made a _seriously, get to the point_ gesture. "Yeeees?" Lord Heron fidgeted. "You're gay." "Me?" "Yes." "No." "What?" "I haven't exactly asked Steve, but I'm pretty sure he has a crush on Alex. That's a girl, by the way. From the village. So I don't think he is either. And I'm definitely not." Lord Heron groaned. "You're sleeping together." "Yes? _S_ _omeone_ convinced the innkeeper to have all of the other rooms closed for the night and we had to share a bed. That was low." "I will not deny your accusations, because unlike you I am not afraid of the truth. Yes, I may have stooped rather low in this situation, but can you blame me? You're _still_ in denial!" Herobrine glanced at Steve as Lord Heron raised his voice. He seemed to still be asleep. "OK. Listen. We're brothers. That's gross. I don't know where you're getting this from, but no. Absolutely no. Not ever. Not even slightly." "There's no need to be so defensive." "Steve is NOT my—shit. OK, he's still asleep." "Perhaps you should wake him up. I think he might be more inclined to tell the truth." "No, I don't believe he even knows about this. And why are you so certain, anyway? Do you completely fail to comprehend normal friendship? I mean, you don't really have friends yourself and—wait, is that it?" for a moment, Herobrine almost pitied him. He shared some of his own troubles, although they dealt with them differently. "Various situations. It's completely obvious to anyone with two eyes and a brain." "No, it can't be, because it's actually not a thing." "BS." "Come on. What have you got? I mean really?" "Well, let's see." oh Notch. Did he actually have a list memorized?

 **A/N: So this is what's going on! Man that's awkward. Steve's fine though, he doesn't realize any of this idiocy is going on. Seriously, I just love Steve.  
Steve: *sleeps through apocalypse* whoa, where is everyone?  
Herobrine: I kind of exploded the universe. I'm sorry. I can fix it. Really.  
Steve: ...dude. **


	4. Proof! (That Proves Actually Nothing!)

Lord Heron crossed his arms and leaned back. "You want proof? You should know yourself what convinced me." "I honestly don't." "Please stop lying to my face. I already know." "I'm not lying to your face! Please stop making up things!" "Right. Proof. I'll start with this trip. You suspected I was following you, didn't you?" "Yeah. You were kind of obvious about it." "I won't insult your intelligence. You get it from me. What were you doing down that alley?" "Huh? Oh that—wait, you saw _that_?" "Yes." "Um, I was trying to ah, keep Steve from meeting an acquaintance that I wanted to avoid—" "I picked up on that part. But then you decided to stand in the alley discussing the weather for half an hour?" "No, Steve was comforting an urchin." Lord Heron looked at him in disbelief. "Really." "No, that was my reaction too. I swear, I couldn't make this up. Why, what did you think we were doing?" Lord Heron made vague gestures. "OK, if that's all you've got, I don't—" "It's not." Herobrine sighed loudly. Father and son both had a tendency to be overdramatic. "Pray continue with your tale of misanthropic misinterpretation." "You shower together." "What?! No we—oh wait, you mean that one time? That was last year! How long have you been spying on us?!" "It's what first made me suspicious." "OK. Listen. We were out in the woods, killing things." "I'm not interested in—" "This is actually what happened, OK? Hear me out." Lord Heron shook his head sadly. He was obviously making this all up. "We got back and we were both hot and tired and sweaty and covered in zombie juices. And we didn't want to argue over who got to shower first, especially since we were low on water and whoever went last was going to have a very short shower and have to scrub off the zombie bits with a towel. So we got in at the same time and helped clean each other's backs and didn't have any arguing. It made sense. Nothing weird happened, as you would know if you were sneaking on us for any amount of time. I shouldn't have to explain this!" "I wasn't, I'm sure you know that I left the moment I realized what you were doing." "Scrubbing bits of rotten flesh off my arms with a rock? Right. So seductive." he made a face. "No no no. Listen, you don't have to lie. I'm perfectly fine with this situation." "Well I'm not!" "Yes, Herobrine, you clearly are." "I. Am. Not. And neither are you. You're obviously struggling with the very idea." "No no, it's alright. Especially since Steve is clearly the woman in this relationship." "…..wat." "I'm still holding out hope for a few legitimate grandchildren to carry on the line. It doesn't have to be anytime soon." "Wait you've actually—you've been trying to figure out which of—I mean how long have—why—" he spluttered so much he finally wasn't able to say anything else. Lord Heron made calming motions with his hands. "Shh. Shh." he raised one eyebrow in sudden worry. "I'm not wrong, am I?" "NO! BECAUSE NEITHER OF US—" Herobrine facepalmed angrily and glanced over his shoulder at Steve, who was, miraculously, still fast asleep, breathing gently with his mouth half-open. "Please stop denying everything. I mean, even if that's the case—" "Nothing is the case! Get out of my room!" "It's his too. Hey Steve?" "Shhh!" Herobrine snarled at him. "What? Perhaps he won't be quite so defensive." oh that was all Herobrine needed now, to have a sleepy Steve confusedly agreeing with everything without having a clear idea of what was going on. That was exactly something that he would do. "No because he's Steve, but you'd have to explain everything to him first. Now get out." "You don't speak to your father like that." "You don't disturb your child's sleep to harass him with ridiculous insults!" "Now you know I don't mean it as an insult, and I'm perfectly willing to accept you both as" "GET OUT OF MY ROOM!" at this point he didn't care if Steve woke up (and incidentally, he didn't. Steve sleeps like a rock. A rock buried from the dawn of time at the center of the earth surrounded by miles of insulating pitch.) Lord Heron, to his shock, found a sword flashing towards him. The flat struck him across the face. "GET OUT!" he drew his own sword and angrily fended off slaps from Herobrine. "YOU DON'T TREAT YOUR FATHER LIKE THAT!" "GET. OUT!"

They crashed downstairs, screaming at each other. They left the door open. Steve grumbled something to himself and snuggled deeper under the blankets, half-waking, but only for a moment.

A crowd of late drinkers on their way home saw something so unusual that if they hadn't all pointed at the same time they might have thought it was a hallucination. Heron, some sort of petty lord who came around occasionally, was screaming at a young man who chased him down the street whapping at him with the flat of his sword. The strange procession disappeared around a corner with a crashing of overturned crates. An alley cat trotted across the street, ears tucked back in disgust at having its sleep disturbed.

 **A/N: The chapter documents for this were saved as "Why Did I Write This" 1-5. I'm just going to finish updating and be done with this big pile of weirdness. No, I wasn't on a sugar high. But I was sick. And very stressed. And sleep deprived. Which gives kind of the same effect.**

 **There will be one more chapter. It will be weird. But it will kind of tie things up. Kind of. Mostly in the author notes.**

 **Also Convenient Alias says that I appeared to be implying that irl shippers do not have friends at one point. This was 100% not my goal. Lord Heron is a specific crazy person and is not meant to symbolize anyone, although I do kinda sorta use him to poke fun at shippers, slightly (but again, I was not intending anything hurtful.) He was more a gambit to help me get over being shipped by my mom, actually. It was incredibly annoying and incredibly not true. Kind of like in this story.  
**

 **I am just rambling on and on because a) I feel like it and I can b) this story can't get much stupider anyway and c) the word count for this chapter was a little low because it was originally part of a long chapter that I ended up splitting so I was like "I'll just add some rambling author notes and that will make the technical word count closer to the rest of the chapters." Yes, I am a terrible person.**

 **Reviews always appreciated on everything. Even this thing. I just hope it makes you laugh, because I'm laughing at myself.**


	5. Steve, I Have Something to Tell You

Herobrine slammed the door behind him, remembering Steve at the last moment and unsuccessfully trying to catch it. Steve didn't wake up. Herobrine threw his sword down. Well, that was over—why were there unicorns everywhere?! There was an unobtrusive sound from the door and he whipped around to see Forysthia sneaking out of the room, smeared all over with charcoal. She gave him a sheepish gap-toothed grin before shutting the door. There were charcoal unicorns and pegasi and cupcakes all over the floor and lower halves of the walls. Herobrine sighed, and shoved Steve over in bed. He realized that Steve had cat whiskers drawn onto his face. He rubbed them off with the washrag and climbed in next to him. "Hey," said Steve, stretching. Herobrine looked at him in surprise. " _Now_ you wake up?" "Yeah," said Steve, looking at a faint glow on the ceiling. "It's morning." Herobrine burrowed under the pillow with a groan. "Are you alright?" "Fine. Did you hear any of that?" "Any of what?... I think there was shouting. What happened?" "I'll tell you later. Go back to sleep." but instead he felt Steve tucking the blanket around him, and then he got up and left. Several hours later he was shaken awake. "You'd better get up if you want any breakfast before we leave. It's a beautiful morning." "We're leaving?" said Herobrine from under the pillow. "Yeah. I saw dad, he said he'd pick up the ring himself." Herobrine mumbled something unpleasant about Lord Heron. "He was actually quite nice today. Talked about me being part of the family and stuff. He's never done that. It was quite touching. Wonder what put him in such a good mood. Oh, and he told me to tell you that the two of us were in agreement and that you could sulk if you wanted to because he wasn't going to bring it up again. What was that ab—" Herobrine sat bolt upright with a grating shriek and hurled the pillow against the wall. "….I guess he was referring to whatever caused the shouting last night?" Herobrine hid under the blanket and muttered imprecations in several languages. "Yikes. What happened?" "Don't make me tell you on an empty stomach."

They were halfway home, riding through a birch wood. Herobrine decided Steve ought to know what was going on and told him. Steve looked blankly at him. "….." "Oh for the love of God, don't tell me I have to _explain_ it to you!" "He… thinks we're…." "Yes!" "You and me?" "Yes." "…." "Yes. I know." "…He does know we're siblings, right?" "Well I hope so. I believe he had quite a lot to do with it." "That's…." Steve spent some time making increasingly bewildered faces as he searched for words. "Yep," said Herobrine. "But.. but..!" "I know. That's what the shouting was, me trying to tell him how messed up it is." "Why..." "Because he's weird, Steve. He's messed up and he doesn't understand how friendship works and he has a sick mind and I don't think he likes you." "Huh." "Actually I'm not sure he likes me either." "Sure he does." "Pff." they rode on in silence. Glancing at Steve, Herobrine was startled by angry he looked. It was hard to make Steve angry, but it was scary when it did happen. He wondered if he should tell him more about what his father had said and see if he could get him really furious, but decided against it. He'd already given his father enough of a beating that even he was feeling a bit guilty about it. Not that he'd be seriously hurt, but Steve had had a point, it was disrespectful. Then again, he had definitely been provoked, and Herobrine was not inclined to repentance.

Lord Heron reappeared a few days later. Herobrine found him in the kitchen making himself a cheese sandwich. "You're back." "Yes." Herobrine took a deep breath and prepared himself for something that he had never been good at. "Uh, I'm.. sorry for, uh… overreacting, back there. I uh… overreacted a bit and… sorry." he still thought that it was barely an overreaction, as everything else had failed to get Lord Heron to cease and desist; but he had gone a little stir crazy, which he wasn't proud of. Lord Heron made a dismissive sound. Herobrine wondered whether it was a sound of forgiveness or of holding a grudge for the rest of his life. So maybe he was bad at apologizing but this dude wasn't helping. Lord Heron waved the sandwich at him and turned to leave, but froze. Steve had appeared in the doorway, effectively blocking his path. He glared at him. Lord Heron shrank back. Was he afraid of Steve? Suddenly Herobrine wondered. "Ah, hello, Steve." "Herobrine and I are friends." Steve took a step forward and narrowed his eyes. "Just. Friends. Understand?" Lord Heron backed across the room and went out the other door. And he never mentioned it again, except once the next day to Herobrine. "Listen, maybe I did jump to conclusions just a little bit. How about we never mention this again—" "Wait, you'll listen to him but not me?" "Agreed?" "Yes, please, thank you. Why do you listen to Steve?" "He's too stupid to lie." "He's not stupid." but Herobrine knew what he meant.

 **A/N: HeroSteve is a pet peeve for me, you may have guessed. There's a good bit of it out there and some is quite horrifying. I wondered what my own interpretations of Steve and The Brine would think of being shipped together (they're half-brothers, in case that wasn't written clearly enough on the anvil I dropped on your head.) Also I was angry at life because my mom wouldn't quit disapproval-shipping me with a random dude who took me to a dance once. Once. And also I was sick and feeling slightly high. So this happened. Hopefully it was in some way amusing and not too scarring. #rantover.**

 **Also, disclaimer, this was not intended to be insulting or hurtful in any way to any actual fans or ficcers and if it was I apologize. Awkwardly. Like Herobrine. But I might possibly mean it more.**


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